Nutcracker – Cocknage Wood, near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, 18th October 1991
Perhaps I should have long weekends more often?
It was autumn 1991, and I had spent the preceding months working on the construction of the Shell North West Ethylene Pipeline in Lancashire and Cheshire, based at offices in Preston and staying at my Auntie’s in Lytham during the week, and at my friend Carol Carrington’s at the weekends. And very full on it was (I invoiced for 168 hours in a fortnight in the most intensive phase). As such, I rarely had the opportunity to visit St. Albans, where I still nominally lived.
However, on this particular occasion, I had managed to get a flyer on the Friday afternoon to get my weekend in St. Albans off to a good start. Better, I ‘phoned Birdline and was advised that there was a Nutcracker at Cocknage Wood, near Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire (it had been there since the 15th October, perhaps betraying that there was little time or purpose in me ‘phoning Birdline earlier during the working week?). All the same, this was now very convenient, given I would soon be passing on the M6.
Oh, that they were always that easy! Once there (oh, that it was that easy!) I was rewarded with excellent if intermittent views of a Nutcracker as it gambolled across the back lawn of a large house like an outsized demented Starling, fly-catching.
It was dark brown overall, with intricate white flecking and white under-tail coverts. There was less white flecking on the remiges, crown, etc., and the bill was stout and pointed.
Nutcracker, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, October 1991 (photograph credited to unknown).
https://youtu.be/eov8LBDSUi0 Nutcracker video (video credited to Alan Shaw).
